What’s better than Southern fried chicken? Southern fried chicken served Kerala-style, shimmering in coconut oil, with curry leaves and peach chutney. If you had no idea Southern Indian food got along so well with good ol’-fashioned Southern cookin’, Chef Asha Gomez’s Cardamom Hill will set you straight. Come hungry—did we mention that chicken comes with waffles (and a side of red-chili-flake-spiked maple syrup)?

It’s hard to heap even more praise on Sid Mashburn, but we’ll try. This shop is where genteel meets sprezzatura. It’s where old and young guys can commingle and experience one of the last extant examples of truly extraordinary customer service. The secret of Sid’s is the balance of sportswear and formal gear that checks off all your boxes: fit, quality, and a “damn that’s cool” factor. So not only will you find traditional tweed sport coats and double monks, but also playful Japanese floral popover shirts and highlighter-yellow Tretorn Nylites.

The Optimist is just about the biggest, prettiest, first-date-iest seafood temple you can imagine, with the added advantage of offering peel-and-eat Georgia shrimp, which may be the tastiest crustaceans you’ll ever put in your mouth.

Church is the colloquial name for this zany two-story bar crammed with quasi-heretical folk art—try to imagine a nativity scene atop a beer sign, or a portrait of the Virgin Mary emblazoned with the question, “Who’s Your Daddy?” If that’s too difficult, just stop in here, where it’s all over the walls, just everywhere, and then upstairs is the ping-pong table; you wait your turn while sitting on church pews. It’s an altogether strange place, but pleasantly so. Yuengling costs $3, which is nice, and it’s not even the cheapest thing on the menu (mac and cheese goes for $2). If the scene inside gets to be a bit much, flee out back and enjoy your refreshments on the patio.

Picture everything you love about a New York-style Jewish deli—the bagels with a schmear, the latkes with applesauce, and the pastrami sandwiches with a gut as thick as an encyclopedia, and then transport them to a gleaming, spankin’ new space near Emory University, where everything down to the warm chocolate babka is made in-house. Your grandpa had the New York deli—after a visit to the General Muir, you can proudly claim Atlanta’s.

If you’re drinking deep into the night in this town, you’re either at a strip club or the Octopus Bar, a hip East Atlanta joint that doesn’t even open until 10:30 pm. Attached to a Vietnamese restaurant on a residential street, Octopus describes itself as “the intersection between a local eatery and punk rock fine dining.” The place does take its food seriously—duck eggs, braised and fried rabbit legs, monkfish liver torchon—but at this hour you might just want to show up for liquid refreshment. The booze menu comes hard with cocktails like the Dixie Cup #2 (bourbon, rum, peach, grapefruit, and bitters) and a deep selection of beers in a can. You can drink elsewhere in this nightlife-oriented neighborhood (we also love the endearingly grimy EARL), but here you’ll feel like you’ve discovered something. We’d be shocked if there’s another tourist in the building.

“Atlanta’s hotel scene is fabulous if you like genteel luxury: You can’t throw a hush puppy without hitting a Ritz, Four Seasons, St. Regis, or InterContinental. Otherwise it’s a sea of mid-level chains. So just Airbnb it. Midtown is lousy with brand-new condos, and even a four-bedroom house in charming Virginia-Highland would cost less than one of those five-star rooms.”—Nick Marino, GQ associate editor

Suitsupply’s Georgia outpost delivers on all fronts: The spacious store boasts 7,000 square feet of suits and sportswear, and it’s their biggest store in America yet. Huge windows hint at the variety of wares available inside, and to ensure customers leave knowing their purchases fit perfectly, there’s an on-site tailor.

Here’s how you do this: Go to Holeman & Finch for cocktails around 7:30. Immediately upon sitting down, order a hamburger. It will not be available until 10 p.m. But, if you don’t order it now, it will sell out. (They only make 24 a night, for those in the know.) As you wait, settle in, enjoy your drinks, and discover why the bar program has earned two straight James Beard nominations. If you’re starving, maybe snack on the tea-braised collards or the blazing $6 tribute to Nashville’s legendary Prince’s hot chicken. At length, a burger appears. Behold it, in all of its house-made glory. The H&F team bakes the bread, they grind the meat, they do everything in house except for the cheese, which is a Kraft single, as the good lord intended it to be.

Billy’s brand of Southern cool—soft-shouldered jackets, beat-up boots, and washed-down dress shirts—finds no better home than in BR’s Atlanta digs. The shop’s woodsy interior oozes with the vibe of a luxurious man cave: It’s the type of place where you can come in to buy a shirt and stay to sip on some whiskey.

If you don’t choose your accommodations wisely, you’ll wind up staying downtown on Peachtree Street (thinking that’s a good thing), where your neighborhood dinner choices will be Hard Rock Cafe or Hooters. A better choice—really the only good choice downtown—is the Glenn, a handsome mid-rise located on the doorstep of Centennial Olympic Park and one block from the city’s biggest sports and entertainment complexes. Take in the skyline from the hotel’s rooftop bar, and smile politely at all the poor saps down below who don’t know better.

Not every restaurant in the South is a paragon of lard-dripping, gut-busting excess. When you’ve had your fill of cornbread and collard greens and every other old-school staple on your list, make a reservation at Cakes & Ale, a homey farm-to-table spot serving more surprising regional fare like North Carolina trout, quail with fennel sausage, and okra with chile and lemon.

The Little Five Points neighborhood is Atlanta’s bohemian corridor, with the requisite record stores and vintage shops. There’s also a pub with an entrance inside the gaping mouth of a giant skull, and across the street from the skull is Wish, where you’ll find two things worth noting: a main floor loaded with Comme Des Garçons, and a basement stocked with nothing but sneakers. Some real rarities can be found here, including kicks such as Nike Lunar Force 1s in digi camo, Jordans in unusual colorways, and Opening Ceremony x Adidas Rod Lavers.

Face the Victory sandwich shop, and look for the alley that runs along the right-hand side of the building. Walk down that alley until you see the door on the left (it’s the only door) and then step down into this cocktail den that uses ingredients you’ve never heard of (Becherovka or Combier Pamplemousse, anyone?) and combinations you’ve never imagined (gin plus bitter beer). The vibe is less pretentious than you’d think—this is Atlanta, y’all—so the bartenders are happy to tell you about their creations, or serve you some steelhead trout off a short food menu that’s way more ambitious than it has to be.

You don’t know Jack until you’ve taken a trip to Spade’s Atlanta outpost, a 1,600 square-foot destination featuring plenty of the rugged luggage the brand is known for. Bonus cool factor: Pay close attention to the wallpaper, which is covered in lions, tigers, and bears (oh my!).

Much praise has been lavished upon Hugh Acheson, the Canadian chef and restaurateur whose obsession with Southern food feels every bit as ingrained as any native-born son’s. Believe the hype. ESS does shit right. You’re practically required by law to order the farm egg with kielbasa, crisp Carolina gold rice, spring onion purèe, and green onions. But the baller move is to add an order of something called In Jars, a sampler that includes boiled-peanut hummus and pimento cheese with bacon marmalade. These dishes are both appetizers. Just keep ordering, you won’t want it to stop.

Walking into Epitome feels like setting foot on a spaceship. Stark white walls, chairs, and floors with translucent panels set off the wares, like high-end sneakers from Del Toro and offerings from Alexander McQueen. Yes, you’ll find plenty of sneakers from Reebok, Nike, and Ewing, but you can also leave with luxe Balmain biker jeans, hardy Danner boots, or slick Cole Haan loafers. And if you scuff your kicks, consider picking up a specialty sneaker cleaning kit by Jason Markk—Epitome stocks him, too.

Today, commercial radio sucks pretty much everywhere. Not so in the ATL, which does its hip-hop roots proud with three bangin’ rap stations: Hot 107.9, Streetz 94.5, and V103.3 (good at 6 p.m., when local hero Greg Street takes over the airwaves). Rent whatever car has the best stereo and spend your visit alternating between these three stations. They’ll make traffic a hell of a lot more enjoyable, and bring you up to speed on who’s hot in the streets.

One of the recent additions to Atlanta’s Westside shopping scene, Steven Alan’s Georgia store brings plenty of its New York City eccentricities with it. Like his other stores, it carries third-party brands alongside the in-house line of shirts and menswear basics (you’ll find A.P.C. denim and waterproof Elka jackets from Norse Projects on the racks). However, this location also boasts an on-site Steven Alan Optical service, so you can see how awesome you look in your new duds much, much more clearly.

“I worked next door to Star Provisions for three years—so I’ve had everything on the menu. It’s all good—the prosciutto, the Reuben, any of the frittatas, but the shrimp po’ boy is [explicative]-ly amazing. Order it with a bag of Zapp’s and sweet tea. You’ll need to walk it off; luckily, some of ATL’s coolest stores are right around the corner.”—GQ assistant editor Mark Anthony Green

Bocce ball is a big deal in Atlanta. There’s a citywide league, for crying out loud. On sunny days, head to the east-side suburb of Decatur to visit Leon’s Full Service, a charmingly renovated gas station with outdoor bocce and a wicked bar program. The prices are fair, the vibe is leisurely, and the food is fancy pub grub along the lines of cheese-stuffed peppadew peppers and frites served with more than a dozen sauces. (If it’s raining, go to the west side and hit up Ormsby’s, a wood-paneled watering hole with an indoor court and twenty rotating beers on tap.)

Piedmont Park & The BeltLine

400 Park Dr NE (404) 875-7275 | 86 Pryor St SE, (404) 477-3003

Designed in 1909 by the sons of Frederick Law Olmsted, Piedmont Park is among America’s greatest greenspaces. The sprawling park alone would be an attraction, with its farmers’ market and dog run and footpaths and glorious carpet of grass smack in the heart of Midtown. But a new urban recreation area called the BeltLine is almost more impressive; it reclaims 22 miles of neglected railways snaking through the city. To walk (or bike, or push a stroller) down these paths now is to get a backstage tour of Atlanta—complete with public art and skyline views and some of the city’s best people watching. (And, conveniently, the BeltLine links up to Piedmont Park.) For a lovely four-mile tour, start at the park’s southeast corner, 10th Street and Monroe, and wind your way south down the BeltLine to Edgewood Avenue. Then double back. (There’s a burrito joint and good local ice cream at Edgewood, if you need a resting place at the turnaround.)